Quotes from
THE INNER LIFE Hazrat Inayat Khan
It is the balance which enables man to stand the strain of this journey and permits him to go forward, making his path easy. Never imagine for one moment that those who show lack of balance can ever proceed further on the spiritual journey, however greatly in appearance they may seem to be spiritually inclined. It is only the balanced ones who are capable of experiencing the external life as fully as the inner life, to enjoy thought as much as feeling, to rest as well as to act. The center of life is rhythm, and rhythm causes balance. (p. 5) i By “inner lifeâ€? is meant a life directed towards perfection, which may be called the perfection of love, harmony, and beauty; in the words of the orthodox, directed toward God. (p. 6) What gives [the great saints and sages] this balance? It is repose with passiveness. When they stand before God they stand with their heart as an empty cup; when they stand before God to learn, they unlearn all things that the world has taught them; when they stand before God, their ego, their self, their life, is no more before them. They do not think of themselves in that moment with any desired to be fulfilled, with any motive t be accomplished, with any expression of their own, but as empty cups that God may fill their being, that they may lose the false self. (p. 67) The work of the inner life is to make God a reality, so that He is no more an imagination; that this relation that man has with God may seem to him more real than any other relation in this world. And when this happens then all relationships, however near and dear, become less binding. But at the same time a person does not thus become cold, he becomes more loving. (p. 8) You would scarcely believe it if I were to tell you that during four years of the presence of my Murshid [(spiritual guide)], hardly more than once or twice did I have a conversation on spiritual matters‌.His conversation was like that of every other person, he spoke on everything belonging to this world, never a spiritual conversation, nor any special show of piety, or spirituality, and yet his atmosphere, the voice of his soul and his presence revealed all that was hidden in his heart. (p. 14)
Those who are God-realized and those who have touched wisdom speak very little of the subject. It is those who do not know who try to discuss it, not because they know, but because they themselves have doubts. When there is knowledge there is satisfaction, there is no tendency towards dispute. When one disputes, it is because there is something not satisfied. (14) Man has either to realize himself as something, or as nothing. In this realization of nothingness there is spirituality. (14) In order to attain to spiritual knowledge, in order to become conscious of the inner life, one does not need to learn very much, because here he has to know what he already knows. Only, he has to discover it himself. For his understanding of spiritual knowledge he does not need the knowledge of anything except himself. (15) The true lover of God keeps his love silently hidden in his heart, like a seed sown in the ground, and if the seedling grows, it grows in his action towards his fellow-man. He cannot act except with kindness, he cannot feel anything but forgiveness; every movement he makes, everything he does, speaks of his love, but not his lips. (15) In the inner life the greatest principle that one should observe is to be unassuming, quiet, without any show of wisdom, without any manifestation of learning, without any desire to let anyone know how far one has advanced, not even letting oneself know how far one has gone. The task to be accomplished is the entire forgetting of oneself and harmonizing with one’s fellowman; acting in agreement with all, meeting everyone on his own plane, speaking to everyone in his own tongue, answering the laughter of one’s friends with a smile, and the pain of another with tears, standing by one’s friends in their joy and their sorrow, whatever be one’s own grade of evolution. (15-16)
For the man who has realized the inner life every act is his meditation; if he is walking in the street it is his meditation; if he is working as a carpenter, as a goldsmith or in any other trade or business, that is his meditation‌.He may know things and yet may not speak, for if a man who lives the inner life were to speak of his experiences it would confuse many minds. (17) To the man who lives the inner life, everything that he sees becomes a written character and this whole visible world a book. He reads it plainly as a letter written by his friend. And besides this he hears a voice within – which becomes to him a language. It is an inner language; its words are not the same as the words of the external language. It is a divine language. It is a language without words which can only be called a voice, and yet it serves as a language. It is like music, which is as clear as a language to the musician. Another person enjoys music, but only the musician knows exactly what it says, what every note is, how it is expressed and what it reveals. (23-24) The first moral is constantly to avoid hurting the feelings of another. The second moral principle is to avoid allowing themselves [(those on the spiritual path)] to be affected by the constantly jarring influences which every soul has to meet in life. The third principle is to keep balance under all different situations and conditions which upset this tranquil state of mind. The fourth principle is to love unceasingly all those who deserve love, and to give to the undeserving their forgiveness, and this is continually practiced by them. The fifth principle is detachment amidst the crowd, but by detachment I do not mean separation. By detachment is only meant rising above those bondages which bind man and keep him back from his journey toward the goal. (36) There is no greater teacher of morals than love itself, for the first lesson that one learns from love is: I am not, you are‌.When the thought of self is removed then every action, every deed that one performs in life, becomes a virtue. (53)
The religion of the mystics is a steady progress towards unity….In the first way he sees himself in others, in the good, in the bad, in all; and thus he expands the horizon of his vision. This study goes on throughout his lifetime, and as he progresses he comes closer to the oneness of all things. (53-54) To a mystic, impulse has divine significance. In every impulse a mystic sees divine direction….The divine part of the impulse is in realizing it is divine. The moment we are conscious of the divine origin of the impulse, from that moment it is divine. (57) A mystic removes the barrier that stands between himself and another person by trying to look at life, not only from his own point of view, but also from the point of view of another. (58) Many fear that by looking at things from the point of view of someone else they lose their own point of view, but I would rather lose my point of view if it was a wrong one. Why must one stick to one’s point of view simply because it is one’s own? (58) A man goes against what he think comes from another person. And yet everything he has learned has come from others; he has not learned one word from himself. All the same he calls it his argument, his idea, and his view, although it is no such thing; he has always taken it from somewhere. It is by accepting this fact that a mystic understands all, and it is this which makes him a friend of all. (59) A mystic does not urge the knowledge of the unknown or unseen upon another, but he sees the hand of the unknown working through all things. For instance, if a mystic has the impulse to go out and walk towards the north, he thinks there must be some purpose in it. He does not think it is only a whim, a foolish fancy, although the reason for it he does not know. But he will go to the north, and he will try to find the purpose of his going there in the result that comes from it. The whole life of the mystic is mapped on this principle, and it is by this principle that he can arrive at the stage where his impulse becomes a voice from within that tells him “go here,” “go there,” or “leave,” “move,” or “stay.” (60)
A mystic will know most and yet will act innocently. It is the ones who know little who make a fuss about their knowledge. The more a person knows, the less he shows to others. Besides, a mystic is never ready to correct people for their follies, to condemn them for their errors, or to accuse them of foolishness. He sees so much of errors and follies and foolishness that he never feels inclined to point them out; he just sees life in its different aspects, and understands the process an individual goes through in life. It is by mistakes and errors that one learns in the end, and a mystic never feels that he should condemn anyone for them; he only feels that they are natural. (62-63) Man loves complexity and calls it knowledge. (63) Therefore a mystic very often appears to be simple, because sincerity makes him feel inclined to express the truth in simple language and in simple ideas, and because people value complexity, they think that what he says is very simple and that it is something which they have always known, and that is nothing new. (63-64) The mystic is no longer the knower of truth, but truth itself. (65) There is one God and one truth, one religion and one mysticism; call it Sufism or Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, whatever you wish. As God cannot be divided, so mysticism cannot be divided. (65) The ideal of a mystic is never to think of disagreeable things. What one does not want to happen one should not think of. A mystic erases from his mind all the disagreeable things of the past. He collects and keeps his happy experiences, and out of them he makes a paradise. (72) The truth is like a piano: the notes may be high or low, one may strike a C or an E, but they are all notes. So the difference between ideas is like that between notes, and it is the same in daily life with the right and the wrong attitude. If we have the wrong attitude all things are right. The man who mistrusts himself will mistrust his best friend; the man who trusts himself will trust everyone. (74-75)
Those who wish to serve the world in the path of truth change complex things into simple ones. It is in a simple form that we have to realize the truth. (82) Those who love their enemies and yet lack patience are like a burning lantern with little oil. It cannot endure, and in the end the flame fades away. The oil in the path of love is patience, and besides this it is unselfishness and self-sacrifice from beginning to end. And he who says, “Give and take,” does not know love; he knows business. (87) To explain in simple words what the spiritual path is, I would say that it begins by living in communication with oneself, for it is in the innermost self of man that the life of God is to be found. This does not mean that the voice of the inner self does not come to everyone. It always comes, but not everyone hears it. (90) No man has the power to teach another the truth; man must discover it himself. (134) So the real meaning of the word initiation, which is related to initiative, is that a man takes his own direction instead of that in which the crowd is pulling him. And when this happens the religious people will say that he has become a heathen, his friends will say that he has become foolish, and his relations will say that he has gone crazy. (137) There is only one thing which gives complete satisfaction, and that is to arrive at self-realization….[self-realization] is the continual process of effacing the self; it is just like grinding something which is very hard; it is a continual grinding of the self. And the more that self is softened, the more highly a person evolves and the greater his personality becomes. (143-144) The one who speaks is not always wise; it is the one who listens who is wise….It is the foolish who always readily express their opinion; the wise keep it back. (155-156)
It should be remembered that all the great teachers of humanity such as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, and Zarathustra, have been great pupils; they have learned from the innocent child, they have learned from everyone, from every person that came near them. They have learned from every situation and every condition of the world‌(157) The more we worry about ourselves, the less progress we make [on the spiritual path], because our whole striving should be to forget the self; it is mostly the self which obstructs the path. (158) The real home of man is the Spirit of God, and elsewhere he will never be satisfied. Man cannot understand this because he gets a little substitute called pleasure. Another thing is that this pleasure is momentary, and he must always suffer to get it; there is always pain attached to pleasure and one must pay a good price for it. True happiness is never experienced by man, until he has touched that happiness that lives in his own heart. (166167)
Thy Mystics Prayer: Give me, Oh God, Deep thoughts High dreams Few words Much silence The narrow path The wide outlook The end in peace. Amen (174)
H az rat I na yat Kh a n
My name is Karl and I compiled these quotes to share Khan’s spiritual wisdom with you. If you are interested in reading The Inner Life or other books by the Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan, I ask you to please visit my Amazon.com Store. I spent much time choosing and transcribing these quotes as well as creating this document so that you can be blessed by his insightful words. Please click this link to go to my Amazon.com Store . I greatly appreciate your support. Thank you and many blessings on your spiritual journey. For more information about me, please visit my blog: A Chance to See Beyond Oneself i
Quotes were retrieved from: K ha n, H. I. ( 1 9 97 ). The Inne r L ife. Bos to n, M A: Sh am b ha la Pu b l icat i o ns.